Better Man
by seastarr08
Summary: AU - By day, Sookie and Eric are regular people, at first glance, but looks can be deceiving. Connected by their differences, they try to survive in a dangerous world, by using their abilities for good.


**All right...now that DAS has wrapped up, I've started something new. If you have any questions, as you go along, fire away. This is a superhero fic, where both Eric and Sookie retain their gifts of flight and telepathy. The next chapter will be Eric. This one is Sookie. The scene? New York, present day.  
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**Thanks to the marvelous Missus T, for her beta work.**

* * *

I had him by the throat, and landed a kick that would make most men keel over. He kept coming at me, so I was forced to use my head, literally. I glared at him, and he dropped, holding his hands over his eyes. I didn't like having to do that. It drained me quite quickly, leaving me vulnerable, and with quite a headache. Luckily for me, it left him incapacitated enough for me to knock him out and drop him at the police station, with my calling card, a feather in his breast pocket, or where ever I could stuff it. The police in this city were incompetent. No matter how many goons I dumped on their doorstep, there were always more.

* * *

My name is Sookie Stackhouse. I grew up in a small town in Louisiana with two normal parents. I have a brother, who is also normal, except for his ability to attract copious amounts of loose women. I was about five when I realized that I was different. My parents knew long before that. School was hard for me, listening in on everyone, no matter if I wanted to or not. I was able to get a handle on things when I was in high school, and managed to graduate with a scholarship to NYU.

I loved the city. It was all one big blur, and easy to block out. Crowds were easier to block than small clusters of people, especially when you had to pay attention to what was being said. No one bothered me,or noticed if I stared at someone a little too long. I graduated with a degree in public relations, and landed my first job at the mayor's office, as an assistant publicist. After a few years, I'd worked my way up the ranks, and now had my own office, and a couple of people underneath me.

It was about three years ago, when I was pulled into an alley and beaten within an inch of my life for my purse, that things changed. I woke up in the hospital, my arm broken, my face black and blue, and all I felt was anger. I found out later, that I'd incapacitated my three attackers somehow. The police thought I'd had some sort of vigilante saviour, but I knew differently. I'd knocked my brother Jason out, a time or two when he was really rotten to me.

I was released a week later, and after I'd been home a couple of days, I had a strange visitor. She wore a huge hat, and as soon as I opened the door, clad in my grey sweatpants and a dirty t-shirt, she glided past me, on impossibly high heels. Her suit looked like it cost more than my rent for a month, which was impossibly high. "Sookie Stackhouse, I presume?"

"Who's asking?" I stopped her, before she got to my messy living room.

"I'm a friend." She sat down at my tiny kitchen table. "I know you took out those three men. I have eyes everywhere, looking for people like you?"

"PR people from Louisiana?"

She lowered her huge sunglasses. Her eyes were bright. She was probably ten years older than me, that, or she looked great for her age. Her skin was pale, and her eyes were a vibrant shade of green. "No." She pulled her hat off, to reveal a mane of red hair. "People with talent. Natural talent."

"What are you talking about?"

"Don't play coy with me." She narrowed her eyes at me. "You're wasting your abilities. What if I could help you make a difference?"

"I'm sorry, you're going to have to cut to the chase here. I've had a long week."

"I know you can do things with your mind. I'm not exactly sure what, but you're going to tell me."

I sat down, tired from standing for even a few minutes, and sighed. "Why should I tell you anything?"

"Because I'm going to change your life." How often did someone tell you that? People changed your life all the time, but they rarely told you beforehand. I believed her.

"I can read people's thoughts, and if I'm angry enough, I can, well, knock them out with my mind, but it's draining."

She looked at me, a bit in awe. "I didn't know about the mind reading bit. Now that is impressive. Now let me tell you a bit about what I do. I run a bit of a support system, for people with talent. Call me an agent, of sorts. I can help you develop your gifts, and give you the means to exploit them to their fullest potential. All I ask in return is that you use them for only for good."

"Why do you do this?"

She raised her eyebrows, stood up, and unbuttoned her jacket, revealing her torso, covered with burns, the likes of which I'd never imagined, in my worst nightmares, let alone imagined someone surviving. "I'm wealthy, beyond your wildest dreams. Let's just say I have a bit of a vendetta against the kind of people that do this to a woman walking her dog. I first found out that people like you were real that night, when the flames were put out by someone with talent, who happened to arrive at a most opportune moment. He saved my life, and, well, I have more money than I can spend, so I do this. Call it paying it forward, call it whatever you want. It's Sophie Anne, by the way."

"I'm sorry."

"I'm not. As Thoreau said, 'goodness is the only investment that never fails.' I want to make sure this never happens to anyone else. Indifference is the only reason things like this go on. People like you are an amazing deterrent. So, what do you think?"

"Sorry, what are you offering?"

"Everything at my disposal." She buttoned her blouse and jacket, then sat back down. "I own shares in several technology companies that create unconventional weapons. I employ a variety of experts in various martial arts fields. I also provide protection for you, against prosecution for anything you might do while you're working for me."

"You mean if I hurt or kill someone? How would you do that?" I couldn't believe I was sitting here, having this conversation.

"Yes. You'd be amazed what can go away, with the right cleaner." She smiled.

Two weeks later, Sophie Anne LeClerc, sent a limo to pick me up after work, and the rest is history. I'm trained in several styles of martial arts, and equipped with state of the art weapons, and I fight bad guys. I check in with her, when she's in New York, which is about one weekend a month.

* * *

With her help, I got a larger apartment that I still live in now, with room to interrogate a couple of people, and to store my vast weapons arsenal. I still work my 9-5 job, in the mayor's office, and about a year ago, I walked around a corner, and smack into Sam. He was adorable, with a mop of brown hair, and kind eyes, and also as idealistic as they came. He had just been elected to city council. Oddly enough, he was from in Shreveport, a short drive from Bon Temps, where I'd grown up. We'd been inseparable ever since. He had no idea what I did after work. I liked it that way. The illusion of normalcy was nice.

I stumbled home, after dropping my friend off at the police station, to find Sam cooking me dinner. Luckily, my crime fighting tools were well concealed in the place he'd never look, behind my shoe closet.

"Hey Sook. Rough day?"

It smelled amazing. Gumbo. "Hey you. You made me dinner." I tilted my head up, and kissed him on the cheek. Sam was a few inches taller than me, but in the heels I usually wore to work, we were the same height.

"Working late again?"

"Oh, you know me. Work, work work." Sam did know me, well, besides the secret life stuff.

"Why don't you go get comfortable? I'll bring it in when it's done." I shrugged, and changed into my yoga pants, and a tank. Sam slept over a few nights a week. I tried to make it to his place too, but due to the nature of my "job", he usually made it home long before me. His place was nice, but I needed to check and see if anything came up on my police scanner, and explaining that would have been difficult. It wasn't a conversation I was willing to have with anyone. My place was also nicer, which was a bit hard to explain as well, since his salary was double mine.

I knew there were more people like me, but how many, I had no idea. Sophie Anne thought it best we work independently of one another, so that if one was revealed, it wouldn't compromise the whole operation. Once and a while, the mayor's office would get word of some vigilantism and we'd have to decide if we wanted to make a big deal about or cover it up. More often than not, if it couldn't be explained easily, we'd cover it up. I found myself covering up my own work from time to time, which was one of the perks of my job. What I couldn't cover up, Sophie Anne's cleaners did for me. I didn't know how they worked, just that they did.

I'd killed a few times, but it was always in self defense. I usually preferred to deliver them to justice. I wasn't comfortable with being judge, jury, and executioner. It was a lot of pressure.

I stretched out on my couch, and looked out over the park. If anything could be said about Sophie Anne, it was that she took care of her talent. I'd told Sam I had a wealthy relative, and he'd never asked past that.

He came in, our dinner on a tray, with a couple of glasses of wine. "Are you staying over?"

"Yea, I think I am." He smiled, and passed a glass of wine over. "How was your day?"

"Good. Signed off on a couple of press releases, had a meeting with the mayor." Niall Brigant was an older, distinguished man with greying hair, and a very high popularity rating. He made doing PR pretty easy. Most people were interested in all the good he was doing, which was unusual for a politician. "How about you?"

"Passed a bill on smoking in front of public buildings. That felt pretty good. You have to be on the sidewalk now."

"That's great. You've been working on that for a while."

"It's just so rude. People have to be in those places, they shouldn't have to breathe that in." Idealistic didn't even come close to describing Sam.

We finished dinner, and curled up to watch some TV. My headache faded with my glass of wine and I fell asleep on him, comfortable and relaxed, a complete contrast to earlier. I woke up to him poking me. "Sook, let's go to bed. We have brunch plans with Tara and Lafayette tomorrow." Ah, Saturday.

"Ok." I mumbled, and wiped some sleep from my eyes. Sam stood, and helped me up. We both did our bathroom stuff, and crawled into bed. He joined me a minute later, after grabbing us each a glass of water. He was very thoughtful, and it didn't go unnoticed. "You're so great."

He started to say something, and then stopped. "Sook, I know there's never going to be a perfect moment, and I've spent the last month trying to come up with one, but, when it comes down to it, every moment I spend with you is amazing. What I'm trying to say here, is that I don't want the moments to end." He knelt down beside the end of the bed, and pulled out a blue box. "Sookie Stackhouse, will you do me the honour of being my wife?"

I swung my legs over the bed, a million thoughts racing through my head. Would I have to tell him? I'd managed to keep my other life a secret for a whole year. Wasn't part of being married being honest with the other person? Then again, didn't everyone have secrets? I'd figure all that out later. I loved Sam, I did. We could be happy together;I could have a normal life. "Yes, I will. I will marry you."

I watched as he slid the ring onto my finger, and brought his lips to meet mine. How would Sophie Anne react to this? She was coming into town next weekend. I hoped she'd be happy, but if life went as it normally did, we'd do the things that married people do. Take a honeymoon, have kids someday. Those things interfered with crime fighting. I had a funny image of myself, pregnant, head butting some lowlife.

I quickly unbuttoned his shirt, and pulled off his tie, and then he went for mine. "Why don't you get the lights?" I smiled, remembered the shin kick I'd taken earlier, and the punch to the ribs from a couple of nights ago.

"I want to see you." He eased his mouth around my ear. I didn't want him asking questions. I always told him I took kickboxing classes for self defence. Right. If by class, I meant kicking and punching petty drug dealers and muggers, then I wasn't really lying. He thought it was good, since I worked late so often.

"My eyes are tired, from working under those lights all day. Come on, it'll be more relaxing in the dark."

"When we're married, can we have sex with the lights on?" He said, half jokingly, as he got up, and turned them off, leaving us in complete darkness, except for a bit of light from the moon through the crack in the curtain.

"Oh, we'll see." Probably not. No, I would say definitely not. I pulled my shirt off, and he moved in beside me, fumbling with my bra for a good five minutes. "I'll get it."

"Oh, I almost have it." A few minutes later, I reached my hands behind, and helped him out. Sam was never very good with a bra. I threw it to the floor, and reached for his pants. He slid them off, leaving himself in a very bright blue pair of briefs. I hated his briefs. They were like something an eighty year old man would wear. Sam had a closet full of them. I wondered if, when we were married, if I could throw them all out and buy new ones. Maybe boxers, or even boxer briefs. I slid out of my sweats and underwear in one pull, and I lay back, as he positioned himself on top of me.

After a few minutes of awkward prodding, I pushed him onto his back, and slid down on him. I enjoyed this more. Maybe it was because I was a bit of a control freak. He moved his hands to my breasts, and I faked a moan, for his self-esteem. Breast play was not Sam's forte. Even my ex, Bill had been better, and that didn't say much.

He was going to have to go down on me. I was barely enjoying this tonight. Maybe I was just distracted. I pulled myself off of him, and laid on my back, and when he went to enter me again, I pushed his head down a bit, and he looked up at me with a wink. He tried so hard. I gave him props for that.

After a few minutes, he brought his face up to meet mine, smiling, and then elbowing me in the boob. Hard. Harder than criminals hit me. I looked at him, a bit confused. "You did, right?" He was so eager to please me, even when he was failing at it.

I shook my head. "You know what, I'm really tired." There was no way he was finishing if I wasn't. I knew that was usually a line people dropped before they turned down sex, but at that point, I didn't care.

"Ok, it has been a long day." I could hear a bit of disappointment in his voice. I kissed him, and rolled onto my side, grabbing my underwear from the floor. I closed my eyes, and about five minutes later, I heard his side of the bed creak. At least someone was getting off tonight.

I got up the next morning to coffee and fresh fruit. "I made a light breakfast, since we're meeting Tara and Lafayette in a few hours." He crawled back into bed.

"Thanks baby." I took the coffee and smiled at him. Despite Sam's shortcomings, he had a lot of positive things, like the coffee in bed in the mornings. I'd managed to improve his skills slightly, and I was confident in time, I'd be able to show him what I liked. Compared to Bill, Sam was a god. Bill had required a kick to the head. Sam just needed a bit of coaching.

We met our friends, Tara and Lafayette for lunch. They were both from Louisiana too, and Tara and Sam were partners in a restaurant. Lafayette and Tara were cousins. Tara and I had gone to high school together and we all had mutual friends, so it was nice to get together as a group, and talk about people we knew and what they were up to.

"That Maudette Pickens, remember her Sook? She was a few years older than us. Anyway, she got murdered a few weeks ago."

"Murdered, in Bon Temps?" I couldn't believe it, which was ironic, since that stuff was a pretty regular part of my life.

"I know, right?" Tara shook her head. "Apparently she was into some kinky shit, Andy told my momma." I thought back to last night, which had been anything but kinky. Not that I wanted to be murdered, while fucking. That was the last thing I wanted. All I wanted was a decent orgasm. I wondered if I'd have to give up my vibrator when we got married. Maybe I could hide it with my weapons.

Sam and I went for dinner in the park and I played up the headache card, and he went to his place for the night. Saturday nights were always great for crime. The scanner was crawling with dirt. I almost jumped with joy, as I heard a call go out for an armed robbery a few blocks from my apartment. I pulled my ring off, which was beautiful, at least a carat and a half, and exactly what I would have expected of Sam. I left it on my counter. I wouldn't want to risk snagging it on anything. I tried to stay as streamlined as I could when I was out.

My costume was an emerald green, shaded to look like feathers, with a bit of red at my neck. It provided good camouflage, better than straight black. I threw my hair back in a tight bun, and pulled on my mask, which covered my hair. It was the same green, and had night vision built into it. Sophie Anne's technology was really quite impressive.

We'd decided on The Hummingbird, for my code name, as a nod to my family home on Hummingbird Lane, and because when I'd done my mind work on Chow, my kick boxing instructor, he described it as a thousand beating wings in his brain, moving, and making it impossible to think. I was also quite quick on my feet I discovered, with his training and help.

A short climb up a fire escape later, I was surveying the crime scene from the top of the building next door. They'd scouted the location from here. I could see the telltale signs that the police too often missed. A footstep here, a cigarette butt there. I'd usually bag anything I could, and drop it off at the police department, along with the other garbage. Anyone could have left those, but they were fresh.

I tracked them to a warehouse a few blocks over. These criminals were dumb. Very Mickey Mouse. I'd come up against some experts, but for the most part, people were stupid. They hadn't even secured their location. Quietly, I climbed in through an open window, and walked through the dark, open space to a back office, the only light in the place.

"We got quite the haul there." Jersey accent.

"The boss will be pleased." Everyone had a boss. I wondered who was theirs.

I pulled my taser from my belt, and approached the office, taking a deep breath, before kicking the door open. I loved this shit. The adrenaline rush was intense. I had been a bit hesitant at first, but once I put my first criminal behind bars, a mugger that had assaulted a college student on her way home after a night course. His MO fit five other recent attacks; I was hooked.

They stopped and looked at me. "Who the hell are you? Did someone send us entertainment for the night?" They laughed.

"Not exactly." There were three of them. No problem. A roundhouse kick and a taser blast later, I was down to one, when I heard a whoosh behind me.

Another mask. "I got this. You can get out of here." He was tall, really tall, and wearing dark blue, with some sort of hammer on the front of his suit. He shoved me out of the office.

I shook my head, pushing him back. "No, in case you missed it, I got this. This is my turf."

"Oh, I didn't know vigilante crime fighters were split into quadrants. I'll try not to listen to your scanner channel." He snickered, as he knocked the third robber out, with a punch to the jaw.

I listened for a second, as we stood there awkwardly. "There are five more of them coming."

"How do you...never mind." He shook his head and sighed. "I guess it's good I showed up."

"I don't need help."

"I'm not helping you. I'm here on my own." He took a defensive stance, as five goons walked through the door, laughing, and chatting. They looked up, and saw us both there.

"Oh, did we interrupt some sort of freak convention? I think Comicon is in LA isn't it?" A big guy slapped him on back.

"Good one Lou." I shot my taser into Lou's forehead, and he dropped instantly. The other guy, who I'd taken to calling Hagar the Horrible in my brain, head butted another one. Before I knew it, we'd taken them all out. I'd been kicked in the ribs, and would probably end up with a black eye, but it felt good. We tied them up, without a word, and then stood there, looking at each other.

"Do you want to call it in?" For the first time, his blue eyes were apparent beneath his mask.

"Sure." There was no way we could lug all these idiots in.

"Are you Sophie's?" He had some sort of accent. It wasn't prominent, but it was there.

"I'm sure I have no idea what you're talking about." I grinned. Sophie Anne's name was never to be tied to any of this. He was testing me, which meant he was hers too.

We walked out of the building, and he turned to me with a smile. "It's been real."

"Yea." I wondered what his talent was.

"See you around." And he took off, into the sky. A bit stunned, I shrugged to myself, and began my long walk home. I wondered what Sophie Anne would have to say about his 'dropping in."

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**Note: The remainder of this story is located on my blog: Seastarr08 dot wordpress dot com**


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